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Comment by vimy | Hacker News Reader

"For many of us, such one-off encounters have become a regular—sometimes even daily—form of “debate,” especially on social media, whose dynamics encourage rhetorical stakes-raising. The idea that two people acting in good faith can look at the same set of facts and reach different conclusions has gone from unspoken assumption to exotic claim. People aren’t just wrong on this or that issue: They’re morally flawed. They don’t have bad politics: They’re bad people. On Twitter, you actually find college professors and politicians using Nazi analogies to attack people who disagree with them on mundane points of policy." https://quillette.com/2019/02/21/what-my-days-as-a-marxist-t...

The "social justice" movement has turned into a church where everyone who disagrees is a heretic that has to be burned at the stake.

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It sounds like The "social justice" movement is made up of some pretty bad people burning innocents as "heretics". We really should do something about that, do you have any suggestions?

I'll get down voted for this one but here goes....

One thing I've noticed of the social justice crowd is the ever shifting goal posts. Anyone to the right of you is an enabler of malicious ideas. Hardly ever are people criticized or ostracized for being to the left of you. There is a way to respectfully disagree but only when both parties actually respect each other. Labeling someone a nazi for voting for a right wing candidate results in the dehumanization of that person, thus removing any respect.

(Here is the part where im going to get down voted). I live somewhere EXTREMELY liberal and if I go any direction for 10min it gets EXTREMELY conservative. I see both sides daily. One thing I realized is the lack of masculine social norms on the left and feminine cultural influence on the right. The right seems to have a minimal respect for how things 'feel'. They won't care if you are offended and rarely try to buffer any tumultuous conversations. The left has minimal respect for authority leaving the louder individual as the person more likely to be heard And listened too. Lefties also embrace the idea that words can be violent and that if someone is allowed to say something entirely opposed to their beliefs then responding with physical violence is okay because that person was violent first. Its rarely an issue on when both parties are on the left because the capitulation to the louder individual in addition to the seemingly similar trajectory of thought patterns.

To create a more harmonious society the left needs to dig its feet in the ground and hold their position stronger against the more fringe radical members that would like elimination of ulterior ideas altogether in favor of a homogeneous and bland society. The right needs to listen to feminine influence more frequently to understand that sometimes the fear of violence can create a situation where violence otherwise would not occur.

> Lefties also embrace the idea that words can be violent and that if someone is allowed to say something entirely opposed to their beliefs then responding with physical violence is okay because that person was violent first.

That's the part where you are going to be downvoted and you know it. Everything else may be relatively right, but that's part is just plain wrong. There's no evidence that "lefties" are more violent, except your feeling, based on a bunch of articles the right has pushed toward you.

At the moment, and as a European, it seems to me that lately:

(I'm using quotes here because I don't think this is what the majority og the left, right or muslims want.)

-"the left" very much more often fight in the streets, throw stones, destroy property, burn cars. This happens on a daily basid now.

-"the right" has been responsible for a smaller number of much more deadly attacks.

-together with "the muslims" who'll also bomb a subway or concert from time to time.

A few decades back it was "the left" (RAF and others) that stood for the spectacular bombings and hostage takings while "the right" were shaving their heads, beating people and destroying property.

None of them are right and I wish them all behind bars.

Few days ago at Berkley. Someone got beat up for having right wing ideas. Happens quite a bit.

this sort of polarization isn't exactly novel in american discourse -

we have inherited puritanical zealousness/reductionism, a mechanical/calvinistic sense of 'the predetermined elect', an overly rationalizing sense of self-righteousness / exceptionalism, yet simultaneously the notion that not only are all opinions somewhat valid and worthy of consideration. further, topics pertaining to 'what is right' (e.g. philosophy/ethics/morality/religion) as a whole are ignored or assumed to be 'decided' within this framework, which limits our ability to actually view things from differing perspectives. and of course the whole thing is the summit of human progress, so one cannot criticize 'the box' without being ostraciszed (witness downvotes here)

added up, this means that i can think whatever extreme thing I want because all opinions are valid, my zealous reductionism can carte-blanche dismiss all contrary opinions based on arbitrary moving-goalpost criterion (that i'm allowed to invent, because opinions), i can self justify my attacks out of self righteousness, and engage in narcissistic self-identification as the 'elect' by joining with others of my group in claiming to be part of the 'elect' which hold this opinion.

when faced with conflicting opinions i can use these same extreme-reductionist tools to simultaneously attack ad-hominem (you are not the elect), use my over-reductionism to dismiss valid counterclaims out of arbitrary sliced-up criteria (yes but..), and when this fails, sit well with dismissing the whole discussion using 'everyone is entitled to their opinion' which gives myself a good feeling of 'fairness' (despite the actual discussion being the contrary and a mockery of actual discourse) and use the good feelings to rationalize away the nagging feeling that i just actually dismissed something legitimate..

further, in living in such a confusing environment of im-entirely-right-but-yet-you-are-entitled-to-your-opinion contradition soup, i can either stay in the middle trying to be balanced and be confused, or latch on to an extreme point of view, and use the rush of it's novelness and 'clarity' (viz. moving goalpost extreme reductionism) to give my self an ego boost (joining the elect), and 'solve for the problem', which i must adhere to strictly and fully, lest i fall away back to the confusion again..

that said the combination of social media vapidness and broadcast media hunger to pick up 'controversies' makes the whole thing worse, i agree.

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